karaoke!

yayyy so last night was super fun.

we'd spent the entire day outside doing cheer and jumprope practice.  our cheer is kind of sucky, because there's a ton of sprinting (to get into position) involved and it looks uber messy, but it includes the YMCA so it's okay.  haha.  and the jump-roping...well we're supposed to have our entire class (41 kids) jump rope at the same time.  you know, those huge long ropes.  sooooo yeah.  at first we could only do it like once, but now we can do it like.  15 times in a row.  yay?  haha.  but i'm at the very front so the rope is ridiculously high.  like up to my knees.  and it's fine in the beginning, but then i start getting really tired.

and i got really sunburnt.  ouch.

ANYWAY so after that we'd planned like.  a class get-together.  i was SO tired and i kinda didn't want to go, but i went anyway.  only about 20 people came out of the 41 in our class, but i actually liked it better that way.  we went to like a cute happy cheap family-style italian place, and shoved tables together and had a merry time.  and i was surprised, a bunch of the guys came.  so there were like.  13 girls and 7 guys, maybe.  hahah.  story of my life.  but it's always like that because there's twice as many girls as boys in my class.  28 to 14.  hahahaha.  yay.  anyway.  so after partying it up there, we went out to karaoke (guys' idea).  only like 12 of us went, but it was SO MUCH FUN.  except like i didn't want to sing by myself, and i only know american songs, so it was kind of an issue.  but luckily my friend haruka used to live in greenwich and knew a bunch of songs i knew, so we sang "sugar, we're goin down" and "viva la vida" and "stand by me" together.  haha.  and i sang like two japanese songs with everyone.  HAHAHA this guy loyd who's one quarter japanese was really into heavy metal/screamo songs, and he sang one song that repeated the phrase "PEOPLE = SHIT" like 10 times.  jesus.  we banished him to the other room.  :D

japanese things

three funny little things i recently discovered about japan:

1.  in a lot of public toilets, each stall has this little electronic panel.  when you push a button on the panel, it plays the sound of rushing water for 25 seconds.  you know what it's for?  it's so other people don't hear you peeing.

they have these at school, too.

2.  at bookstores, if you buy a book, they'll ask you if you want a paper cover put on it.  i bought two things today and when they asked me, i was like "....no...thanks?" cause i had no idea why i would want a paper cover on my book.  turns out, it's cause some people don't like it when other people see what they're reading, like if they're in the subway or something. 

jesus, japanese people are self-conscious.

3.  this isn't really a "thing", just something that amazed me.  

i went to uniqlo the other day, and good LORD i love japanese clothing stores.  so i was in the changing room with my mom, and this store lady came to help us.  i was trying on pants because i like have none, and i was having my usual scruples about size, color, etc.  so this lady basically like.  attaches herself to us for like an hour, going back and forth, getting different pairs for me to try on.  i didn't even ask for any help in the first place!  and she was so knowledgeable about each brand/type, and gave us so much advice on what to get.  then.  japan does this weird thing where they like.  make pants long on purpose.  i don't really know why, but it's totally fine, because they tailor everything for you right there in the store.  that's right.  and if it's just standard shortening, it's FREE.  (so obviously, because i'm short even by japanese standards i suppose, i got everything shortened hahaha.)  and they do it for you that day and you can pick it up in a few hours.  and everyone who works there is so polite, nice, and kind...i want to live in japanese stores.  when i picked up my stuff the guy at the counter showed me every hem and was like "if you find anything wrong, please do not hesitate to call this number and ask for me, i will make sure it is taken care of".  i was like AHH I LOVE YOU.  

and they do all this for no tip.  japan doesn't do tips.

gaku-sai!

woo.  it's been a while.  and by "a while" i mean like.  6 days but whatever.  but i have a lot to catch you children up on!

soo this whole week was filled up with festival shenaniganry.  the annual school festival is called the "gakko-sai" or the "gakuen-sai", "gaku-sai" for short.  we stopped having classes last friday, and saturday and monday were prep days.  saturday was probably the most exhausting day of my life.  i was at school from 8 to 6, and i know that doesn't seem like a long time, but it is when you have to leave the house at 6:40 am.  and then do physical labor like hauling huge blackboards up three flights of stairs.  and yeah.  but anyway.  basically, our "preparation" consisted of getting our classroom festival-ready.  our class decided to do a casino, so we had to make it all awesome and vegas-y.  in the end it really didn't look like vegas at all, but it was still pretty cool.  we taped huge black sheets of paper over all the windows, made really hardcore posters, constructed things for our booths.  we had three booths: one for blackjack, one for russian roulette, and one for this japanese game called "cho-han".  and just fyi we weren't doing the russian roulette where people shoot themselves.  instead, we had two big cardboard boxes and we cut slits in the sides, and made a bunch of cardboard knives.  you have to stick knives into the slits and try not to "stab" the pirate inside, who'll jump out at you if you hurt him.  sounds like fun, right?

during these preparation days i realized just how insanely perfectionistic japanese people are.  okay well first of all, EVERYONE can draw.  it's amazing.  when we were making posters, they'd just pick up markers and start drawing freehand, and everything would turn out perfectly.  jesus christ.  especially this one guy named so - he's INCREDIBLE.  anyway.  but yeah.  so we were outside the classroom trying to decorate the wall.  first we taped black construction paper all over, but then, because, apparently, it all didn't fit perfectly, we untaped every other sheet to make a checkerboard pattern.  then, we taped actual playing cards over the paper to spell out the word "GAMBLE".  but it was kind of hard to see, so we started tearing sheets of colored construction paper into tiny pieces, rolling pieces of masking tape into circles, sticking the tape onto the pieces of paper, and taping the paper around the cards.  now you have to understand these playing card letters were around two feet in height.  that's A LOT of tiny construction paper pieces.  good god.  and then, we ran out of yellow paper before we could finish the "A", and so i suggested we mix bits of yellow origami paper in, but everyone was like "NOOOO (russell peters-style), IT'LL LOOK FUNNY" soo we ended up unsticking every single little piece of yellow paper and using a different color.  

we also made maybe about 100 feet of origami paper chains.  you know, cutting slips of paper, rolling them into circles, and gluing them together?  yeah.  we had to make enough to go around our entire classroom like, three times.  blah.  but it was fun.  

tuesday and wednesday were the actual days of the gaku-sai.  tuesday was a holiday and businesses/schools were closed, so it was meant for parents/friends/kids from other schools to come and see ICU.  it was a ton of fun.  i had a three-hour shift at the russian roulette booth, but it was so much better than i thought it would be.  some kids had bought those noise-maker things - you know, the ones where you pull the string and it makes like a gunshot sound?  yeah.  so i had a bag of those, and i sat in the boxes, and when people stabbed knives in the slits, i'd jump out, pull the string, and scream.  heehee.  totally my type of thing.

my mom and two of her friends came, so we also went to the cheerleading and dance performances.  they are AMAZING.  especially the boys' dance team.  i wish i were a boy so i could join that team.  haha.  but seriously.  so cool.

random tidbits

ahaha, i was told today by two people that they liked my way of speaking japanese, and that it was really cute.  interesting.

and i change my mind again.  now i don't hate dance class either.  we had it again today and it was really not bad at all.  i've learned to not care what other people think AT ALL in that class.  it's fun.  everyone's dances today were actually really good.  except for a warm-up the teacher was like okay i want you to express the letter F.  but not like make the shape with your body.  make F-like movements.

wtF?

HAHAHAH i feel so bad for japanese kids who wear clothing with english on it that makes no sense whatsoever, but don't even notice.  for example, today, i saw two funny shirts.  one was worn by this guy in my english class (ironic, no?) that said "I'll give you the RIDE of your life".  another was worn by a girl.  it had the phrase "These are my all access passes" across the front.  sad thing is, she didn't even really have big boobs.  yikes.

okay ALSO, i was reading a magazine or something, and i saw this ad for this really weird-looking wallet.  it had about a billion separate compartments for credit cards, ids, etc. so i looked closer to see what it was.  apparently, people are using their cellphones to steal credit card numbers and stuff.  japanese phones are crazy and have like built-in infrared beams to transfer information and shit, so apparently it's a really easy thing to do.  so said wallet protects your cards.  weird.  technology is scary.

funny things

japan has the funniest stuff of all time.

the other day my friend showed me a "banana case".  it is actually a plastic case specially made for holding bananas.  it seems kind of ridiculous and unnecessary, but because a lot of people bring lunch from home, it makes some sense...because some people like eating bananas....hahaah.  but seriously.  it's like this green plastic case with littles holes in the sides...air holes for the banana?  and it opens on one side.  and apparently it has been carefully designed to hold any banana of any size.  crazy shit.

hmm.  what else is new?  since i had a good day today, and i was coming home at like 7 and it was already dark, and i was listening to a dance-y song on my ipod, i suddenly started dancing in the middle of the street on my way home.  specifically, the electric slide.  it felt strangely liberating.

you know what's weird?  today i was talking to some september 2nd years (juniors by US standards, i guess, because i'm a sophomore.  except sophomores are 1st years in high school in japan) and they were telling me where they all came from.  of course they were surprised at my "yeah i was in new york for 15 years" deal, but i think i was more surprised by where THEY'D been.  one guy was like yeahh i was in the US, bangladesh, australia, and ghana.  another girl was born in ireland, and had lived in ghana, US, italy, china.  someone else: zimbabwe, shanghai, new zealand.  JESUS CHRIST.  

they must be used to making friends.

changes

okay, i change my mind.

i actually like school now.

i mean there are still things i hate, like dance class, physics, weird english grammar translations.  but everything's gotten a lot better.  here are a few things that have become more fun:

1.  i now have friend.  ssss.  plural.  i used to only hang out with the september kids, as i will call them - meaning the kids who came in september like me.  but that really wasn't fun because they're in class #1, and i'm in class #2.  the other september kid in my class is the guy from london, who's nice, but i mean i'd like to have girlfriends too.  but because the school festival is coming up and there's a lot of stuff to prepare, i've been staying after school to help out.  well i haven't actually been doing much, but it's so much fun to just chill there with a few people.  today there were...maybe around 10 people.  we kinda just sat around, listened to the guys play guitar, ate food (not much different from brearley, is it), found a curling iron and curled people's hair.  including one guy's really short spiky hair.  haha yay.  so yeah that has helped me get to know people.

2.  lunchtime.  again, i used to just eat with my september friends, but now, for the school festival, we have to learn these cheers/dances.  basically, it's a competition between classes 1-6, so each class has to learn about 6 cheers.  each grade has 6 classes, so all class #1 people, whether they're in grade 1, 2, or 3, are together.  since there are 40 kids in each class, imagine 120 kids doing the same cheer.  i'm so excited.  i guess they're not really cheers in the american sense - it's more like...a really simplified version of a routine done in a music video, meaning we do funny dance moves to a shortened song.  well in this case 6 songs.  wow i really suck at explaining things...i'm kind of afraid i will forget how to speak/write coherent english.  because my english classes aren't really doing anything.  yikes.  so anyway, these cheers are SO MUCH FUN to learn, and we have practices twice a day.  at lunchtime and after school.  eeee.

3.  math class.  i have officially abandoned the izumi island.  before this week, i basically sat alone by myself on izumi island during math.  i will explain this.  so my class has maybe...25 kids in it.  there are i guess 6 "columns", and 6 rows of desks.  i sit in the second row, second column.  but nobody sits in the column to my right, and most people sit in the back.  nobody sits directly behind me or in front of me.  the girl i knew from new york sits on my left, but two of her best friends from dance team sit next to her on her left, so she joins desks with them, leaving a  rather large gap between us - completing the izumi isolation island.  hahaha yay.  i could have switched desks, but i didn't really mind because it gave me time to do whatever the hell i wanted with no one to bother me/read over my shoulder.  but now i've gotten to know people better so i joined the dance team island.  they're a fun bunch.  not exactly my type, but fun.

yeaaaah.  so yay.  i'm so excited for this saturday because we don't have classes.  instead, we're spending the entire day preparing for the festival, which is next week.  SWEET.

standardized testing is for squares

so apparently i did better than i thought on my SAT diagnostic test i took last week.  however, i'm not really sure how well they graded my essay, because i met the teacher guy who did it and he was the most...unteacherlike guy i've ever met.  i really liked him though.  he was so refreshing.  it was interesting - he was like "guys.  you know what they don't teach you in high school?  critical thinking.  that's what the SAT tests you on.  i mean, in college, they might hand you a Karl Marx document and ask you how Marx develops his argument.  they're not gonna ask you that in high school."  

.....au contraire.  but okay.

ah, brearley.  love-hate relationship.

and the dude was like "great essay!"  psh.  please.  i wrote about how apple manipulates consumers by making really pretty ads that look clean and fresh.  ahahahaha.

and yeah.  my first session of SAT class was kind of a joke, because we learned like..."what is the cardinal rule of equations?"  and everyone was silent and i was like.  um.  do the same thing to both sides?!  awesome.

occurrences

1.  i overheard a conversation between a couple of girls between classes about the summer homework.  one of them had apparently totally copied some random website for the bible summaries she had to do.  and the teacher read her report and it was full of like intense scholarly interpretations, so he knew she'd plagiarized.  but seriously.  why does that even happen.  perhaps i was so shocked because brearley has hammered the idea that plagiarism is the worst crime possible into my head, but like.  okay fine, i get that you were busy over the summer, but why not take 3 SECONDS to actually read what you're copying?  or maybe even change some things so it sounds like maaaybe you possibly wrote it?  jeez.  and screwing with your BIBLE assignment at a christian school?  harsh.

and the weird thing was, she was like "ehh but i don't really wanna redo it so i don't think i will" even though the teacher had explicitly told her to.  

the world is fucked up.

2.  I RECEIVED KIKA AND LISA'S PACKAGE.  seriously, made my day.  it contained the cutest bunny build-a-bear that i am in love with, and also contained candy and other happy things.  my favorite part was kika's card, though.  it was covered in writing so tiny that it actually looked like simple lines printed on the card.

3.  i talked to chrissie online, which made me extremely happy because i miss her terribly, terribly much.

4.  i videochatted with timothy, who is also doing well.  i miss that boy so much.

5.  ate a delicious, but very tiny, fruit tart.  japanese pastries are so pretty.  the colors are so vibrant and the designs are so cute.  i could take pictures of them forever.

dance, dance

P.E. class today was a weird mix of insecurity, embarrassment, inferiority complexes, and enjoyment.  haha.  we had to give dance presentations in groups of four.  sort of reminded me of dance class in lower school - the really awkward presentations we had to give.  but anyway.

the teacher played this creepy egyptian/arabian-type music, and we all shouted out words that came to mind, such as "snakes", "creepy religions", "camels", and "egypt".  then in our groups of four, we each picked a word we wanted to work on.  my group picked "snakes".  now.  i was in a group with hibiki, may and naoko, and all three of them are like best friends and are on the dance team.  hibiki is the girl i knew from new york.  they all really wanted to do "snakes", so i was like hell whatever.  

as most of you know, i don't really dance.  i enjoy having fun at random dance parties and stuff, but i don't...dance dance.  and all three of them are really good because dance team at ICU is hardcore.  and so there they were being all snakey and i was like okay i am not doing this because a.) i physically CANNOT slither around like you people, and b.)  i feel really dumb.  so i decided that i wanted to be the guy playing the pipe that summons the snakes.  good way out, right?  and so we made up a story where i play the pipe and the snakes wake up and dance all snakily and then they come and attack me and squeeze me to death.

so the presentation went really well, because well.  the three of them were good, and i got to be really dramatic in my dying and suffocating to death.  but i really disliked having to go up there with these girls, and i felt like i stuck out like a sore thumb.  but then again, because i was in a group with them, i felt "safe", meaning that they wouldn't be watching me and judging.  because when all the other groups were presenting, i knew they were like wtf are they doing.

blah.

straight C's?

oh wait.  maybe i'm just studying because i know my grades will be ridiculously bad this year, mainly because i'm in level 3 for three of my classes.  basically, ICU has a really sucky grading system, and they don't grade within separate levels.  the grades you get for the trimester is based largely on the end-of-term exam, so obviously the smartest kids, the ones in level 1, get the A's, so us lowly ones in level 3 are destined for eternal C's.  unless we somehow magically become geniuses and get an A.  in which case we are transferred to level 1 for the next trimester.  so the chances of that happening are very slim.  and anyway, because the september students missed first trimester, we haven't learned any of the first trimester stuff, which'll be on the test.  OH and the exam is the SAME for all levels.  how is that fair?!  but yeah anyway.  so over half the grade always gets like 50s on all their tests and stuff.  super.  

and also cause i'm not a smartypants.

wow, three posts in a day.  help me.

obsessions.

so i realized today that when i become obsessed with something, i really become obsessed with it.

perhaps i picked up this trait from lisa...

but seriously, in the past few days, a few things have had my constant attention, whether i'm in school, at home, or anywhere in between.

1.  dan brown's "angels and demons".  this one was probably the best of the four: the davinci code, digital fortress, and deception point.  all his books pretty much have the same pattern...a mega-smart, tall, handsome man somehow gets pulled into solving a crazy mystery with a ridiculously attractive yet somehow unbelievably intelligent woman.  but i love them.  so much.  once i started reading "angels and demons", i could literally not put it down.  i was reading it on the train, walking up and down stairs to other trains, during the 10-minute breaks during classes, walking home from the subway station.  and now that i'm done, i'm sad.  

2.  braiding.  this huge school-wide festival is coming up, and it's really intense and the entire school is busy planning for it.  basically, every class (6 classes in each grade) has a "booth", i guess - for example, my class is going to have a vegas booth, and have people play blackjack/russian roulette/other fake gambling games.  haha.  and then all the clubs do something, so the dance and cheerleading teams are especially hard at work.  (cheerleading is actually really good.)  anyway, so back to the braiding - apparently we're giving out little bracelets are prizes, so we have like a pound of friendship-bracelet thread in the homeroom, and we all had to take 30 strands to make ten braided bracelets.  very simple.  so i finished my ten strands in about ten minutes and somehow physically needed to make more.  and that is what i have been doing nonstop for the past two days.  everyone thinks i'm insane.  but it's so much fun.  really.  it's actually very soothing.

3.  okay, this is less of an obsession, but i've suddenly become very eager to study and do work.  i know, i know.  gasp.  the horrors.  well i guess that's an exaggeration.  but what i mean is, i never used to care if i had no idea what was going on in class, if i hadn't completely understood the homework, whatever.  i cared more about remembering what 5 across was from yesterday's crossword, because i needed to use it in 19 down for today's.  but now, i always need to understand what's going on, and i can't just blindly fill in blanks for homework.  i need to actually comprehend the meaning.  WHAT'S GOING ON, I KNOW.  i guess it's because i'm in a new place and i'm trying to save myself from as much confusion/embarrassment as possible.  i mean, maybe i'm subconsciously thinking that if i at least know the educational material, i'll be able to eliminate any chances of education-related uncomfortable incidents.  so yeah.  weird.  i actually just finished learning all my characters for japanese class, complete with the definitions of every word, and basically finishing my english report due...next wednesday.  wtf, Izumi.

rantsandraves.

okay, a few things to say today:

1.  i know it's thursday, but why, why, WHY do i have school on saturdays.  WHY?!?!  i am already dreading it.  for serious.  and i know i should be used to going to school on saturdays because i went to japanese school and stuff, but this should be illegal.  plus i have practice on saturdays.  until 4.  WHAT IS THIS MADNESS.  make it stop.  and i'll have SAT class on sundays, so life is extra sucky.

2.  english grammar class is uber hard.  yes, i know, laugh if you must.  but seriously, it's so hard trying to relearn a language you speak fluently.  so, so hard.  and our teacher is japanese, and she's like so TOTALLY wrong on some things that i just want to hit her.  well she's pretty old so she might die, so maybe i just want to smack her head a little.  but either way, it's so hard to learn things like helping verbs when you need to know how to translate them back to japanese.  sentences that flow from my mind automatically have to be dissected, analyzed, translated.  and apparently, because japanese people are so damn systematic, there is a CORRECT translation for everything, and it isn't open to interpretation whatsoever.  and also, there are sometimes MULTIPLE ways of translating things, but the "rule-book of english" (written by a japanese person, i presume) that our teacher uses doesn't contain all of them, so only one way is correct.  for example:

"she cannot be free"

so i took this to mean...well, now i have to put it back in english, but basically that if some guy was holding her hostage, he was refusing to let her go.  this makes sense, right?!?

but apparently, the book only listed one meaning...like, "she cannot be free!", an expression of disbelief.  

good lord.  i hate this class.  it's terrible because i've spent 15 years in the states, i am fluent in english, and yet i will probably get like a D on this test because i can't use my instincts and USE MY NORMAL ENGLISH.

wow.  major rage.  sorry.  and a lot of caps.  lower case letters, i apologize.

3.  i think it's kinda cool how kids in japan always have to clean their own classrooms.  meaning, we don't really have janitors.  well they exist, but they only help out in the gardens/grounds and i guess they do like, major cleaning of classrooms during breaks and stuff.  but every day after school, we all have to take turns and sweep/mop/etc.  it's pretty nice.  it also encourages the kids not to leave the rooms a complete mess, because they know they'll have to clean it up later.

maybe brearley should do that.  but then again, i can't possibly imagine all of us cleaning our homerooms.  

bane of my existence.

okay also, i HATE COMMUTING TO SCHOOL. 

queens/brooklyn/bronx/long island/etc.-dwellers, i have a newfound respect for you.

mehh.  currently i have to leave the house at 6:40, walk to the station, get on a subway for one stop, walk up and down more stairs, get on another train for three stops, then walk up and down and up and down and up again to get to the train, then take that for about half an hour.  then i have to get on a bus that takes me to school.  (p.s. school is HUGE.  i mean the campus is huge.  it takes like 20 minutes to walk from the entrance to the actual school building.  ah, what you can do when you locate your school outside of the city.)  and i finally get there at like.  8:15.  faaaaaabulous.

thank god we're moving in october.

actually.  we're moving like.  two inches.  

okay more, but it's closer to the station.  hahaahha.  wooo.  

More?

okay so that last post was way too long, so i'm continuing here.  something else i've been asked a lot:

what are the people like?  any new friends?

okay so i have no friends.  haha no i'm kidding, but it's kind of hard to make friends.  sometimes, i feel like it's not cause i can't be friends with them because i'm unsocial or terrible in some way, but because i don't really feel like exerting the effort.  slash i don't really want to?  i don't know.  i mean, there aren't any particular people that i think are so insanely awesome that i want to get to know them better, and i have a perfectly fantastic set of friends back home.  i mean, there are people i talk to.  i hang out at school with two other girls who came in in september with me, and they're nice.  but they're not like people i would confide in, tell stories to, etc.  but they're great, it's nice to have people in the same boat as you - plus they're actually very nice people.  so that's good.  and then i know this one girl from new york because our moms are like.  super tight, but we're not really "friends"...i mean, we talk and stuff, but she's more of like.  the fashionista-bitchy type.  not really.  i dunno.  just not really like me.  there.  and like, since school's already in the second trimester, everyone has kinda already established friendships that are hard to "infiltrate" if you don't really try.  and i really don't think i'm trying.  oh well.  i'm sure i'll probably fall out of my "i don't need friends" phase, plus the kids on badminton are really nice.  it's annoying though cause they're all in classes 4-6, and i'm in 2, and 1-3 rarely ever have classes with 4-6.  eh.  

oh a weird thing about clubs (...basically anything extracurricular, including teams) are really intense.  i'm gonna do badminton, because i was too scared of the intense japanese volleyball players - plus badminton's not as hardcore as all the other ones.  but i was also watching dance, and it looked really fun, because it was like hip-hop and stuff.  well no.  the BOYS' dance team was.  i wish i were a boy.  ahah.  anyway.  yeah but it's funny because in japan, there's like a really respected "hierarchy" in high schools (which only have three grades) - obviously, the seniors are at the top, then juniors, then sophomores (who are basically freshmen).  so during practices and stuff, all the younger ones call the older kids "senpai" which means basically like "my senior", and if you play with someone older, if you screw up, you're always like "ahh i'm so sorry!" except way more politely and formally because.  japanese people are just polite.  i dunno i can't explain the expressions people use, but it kind of scares me because i mess up a lot.

what i really realized when i got here was how incredibly small our brearley world is.  i mean, i know pretty much everyone in the entire SCHOOL.  here, i don't even know everyone in my grade.  and people are so similar at brearley, so it's kind of refreshing to see how enormously different people can be.  i mean, a lot of these kids grew up in 4, 5 different places, so i guess it's hard not to have something really unusual or unique about you.  i also realized how brearley education is simultaneously so great and so sucky.  wow that was terrible and blunt phrasing.  but really.  during summer school, we had placement tests, and it was just like.  fjddfkja;kfaaaaaack.  i've been so well brearley-trained that non-brearley tests are like.  a shock to the system.  i know exactly what's on, say, a brearley history test: fill-in-the-blanks, ids, pairs, and an essay, usually in that order.  i know what stuff teachers want us to focus on, what keywords they want us to write, all that jazz.  it's pretty simple, if you've grown up being taught that way.  but that's only in brearley world.  once you get out, everything's so different.  and you've been so brearleyfied that anything "different" is terrifying.  or it is for me, at least.  so in that sense, it's sucky.  but the great part is: brearley really teaches you to think, analyze, interpret.  over here, in class, teachers rarely call on you if you're not raising your hand.  if no one's raising their hand, they keep talking by themselves.  it's basically like a lecture - and while i enjoy lectures because i'm not really the sharing-in-class type, it gets kind of lonely after a while.  and the thing is, it doesn't matter if people don't say anything here, because if you read the textbook and memorize the facts written in it, you'll be totally fine.  tests are totally from the textbook.  but at brearley, you seriously cannot do that.  even if you read what you're supposed to, you get to class and find out that's basically just the background info.  and through class discussions, brearley teaches you the material you need to know, which is made up mostly of interpretations and analytical stuff.  sooo ehhh.  you can't have everything, i guess.

the beginning

hello children.

this is my first post!  i've decided to start this blog as a way to keep my friends back home updated on how life is going over here in j-land.  i'd really prefer not communicating via blog, but it seems a bit too tedious to respond to the same questions over and over again, because everyone is bound to ask them at some point.  now, i guess i'll try to address a few of them that have already been asked, or that i anticipate will be thrown my way in a matter of days.  just a warning, this post will be mega-huge.  you people have a lot of questions.

1.  what's school like?

well.  this requires a loooong answer.  so first i'll start with the basics.  

so i'm currently going to ICU, the international christian university high school.  funfact - being a christian school and all, they play a hymn every morning.  and after the hymn plays, if you walk in, you're late.  funny way of doing homeroom.

anyway.  you know how in sophomore year, we took about...five classes?  and we had a lot of frees, so even if school started at 8:10 and ended at 2:50, we were probably in class only for about 4 of those hours?  yeah.  well.  big difference.  i'm taking about...11 classes?  haha.  well they're not as hardcore as brearley-style classes, but it's still a lot to study for/take tests in/pass.  and there are no frees whatsoever, so i'm pretty much in class straight from 8:30 till 3:10.  anyway, i guess i'll give you a little insight into each of them:

modern japanese: i actually really love this class, because i love the teacher.  she's so, so strange.  kinda like...if she was our age and had been in our grade, she would've been seen as a total loserweirdo and perpetually shunned, but because she's a teacher, she makes class hilarious and not awkward.  and fun.  so it's all good.  anyway, one thing to know about ICU is that because 2/3 of the student body is made up of returning students from overseas, they divide the math, english and japanese classes into levels, 1 being the highest.  so basically the 1/3 of the actual japanese-japanese kids are all in level 1.  cause they're smart and uber asian.  yay.  anyway in modern japanese we...study characters and write essays.  not too hard.

ancient japanese: now this class is one of my major challenges.  imagine reading canterbury tales in your second language.  but worse because we have to do grammar/vocabulary, which is totally different from modern japanese.  so this one requires a lot of studying.  my teacher is this crazy lady in her forties who probably thinks she's in high school herself, because she wears really short skirts and heels and her hair is light brown and wavy.  but she's nice and kind of motherly in her behavior towards us.  if your mother were embarrassingly "fashionable".

math: yay i'm in level 3 out of 4.  woot.  so much for that crazy ridiculous brearley math class i suffered through last year...whatever if i do well on midterms (which are in a month) i can move up.  we're sort of doing stuff we did in that class, like probability, but some of the stuff is different.  but class is deathly boring, because we go insufferably slowly.  but i guess it's not terrible because the kids really like the teacher, so class is lively.

physics: blerrrghy.  nothing special.  'nuff said.

earth science: so this is nothing like earth science in seventh grade.  or maybe it is, i just wasn't paying attention in seventh grade because i was making origami with moogie so i'm learning all this for the first time anyway.  i feel so bad for the teacher because she's basically talking to herself and nobody's listening.  at least everyone's quiet.  in some classes, kids are unbelievably disrespectful to the teachers, and are talking at full volume and are turned completely around in their seats even if the teacher is trying to conduct class.  it's ridiculous.  brearley teachers wouldn't take any of that shit.  or maybe brearley girls are just more eager to...learn stuff.

english grammar: jooooke classs.  joke joke joke joke.  they teach french/german/spanish here, except you can only take them if you actually came from that country.  so they needed a class to put all the english-speaking kids in.  yeah.  so.  joke.  although the difficult part is that since the teacher is japanese, she's really precise about the rules in the book, so it's actually kinda hard to get perfect scores on tests.  they teach expressions like "she need not go there" and "you might as well borrow it as buy it" which i would never use in my life.  we're so used to colloquial expressions that sometimes being formal is really weird.  plus translating BACK to japanese is hard.  yeaaah.  

english lit:  LEVEL 1 YESSS.  score.  we're doing the crucible.  which is not too bad.  class is hilarious because the teacher's from australia, then there are all these kids from different places so class is basically a melting pot of accents.  gotta admit, though, asians with british accents are the best.  but some kids aren't that good at english actually, so i feel really awkward sometimes, because it's obvious we'd rather speak in japanese but we have to speak in english and it's weird.  cool thing though, the guy in my group is from my old japanese school!  we totally didn't recognize each other and then we started talking, which led to the fabulous realization.

world history:  mm.  only twice a week.  not as fun as with omar, but i understand things better.  

health:  not so much health as discussing diseases/their causes/etc.  kinda scary.  i don't really know yet cause i've only had one class...

home ec:  AHHH MOST INTENSE THING EVER.  love it.  it's so hardcore, they teach you about laundry, food, cleaning, etc. etc. etc.  like.  "if you're washing an x% acrylic fabric, the water must be x degrees C., and you must use alkaline type detergent because of [enter reason here], which will not cause the fabric's fibers to [..do this] because they are aligned in the [.......] pattern".  and cooking stuff like if you cook this thing in this particular way, it does this and you gain these vitamins etc...  and more.  i was like EXCUSE ME WHAT.  and yeah, guys do this too, which is amazing.  y'all should marry japanese guys if you don't like doing chores.

christianity:  i don't even know.  i only had one class, and we watched a movie of the creation, adam and eve, cain and abel, and noah's ark.  yes, a MOVIE.  jesus.  dammit, i wanted to be the voice of God...haha but apparently you have to do reports and stuff.  gross.

P.E.:  my least favorite class by far, which is interesting because i loved PE at brearley.  but it's disgusting here.  we have it three times a week, and do a different thing each time.  like tuesdays, we do track, which isn't so bad.  thursdays, gymnastic-type things?  which they will videotape and grade.  fridays, bane of my existence.  DANCE.  but not like.  semi-fun dance.  this is like interpretive dance.  like...we did these things in pairs, where we had to act out a fight scene in slow motion, complete with rolling around on the floor.  or one person would twirl/wave/move a necktie, and the other would have to mimic the tie.  as in shakin' yo booty and doing worm-like motions on the floor.  yikes.  also 100 times more awkward for me because I DO NOT KNOW THESE PEOPLE.

okay this has been too long, i need to start a new post.